You know how some religious groups will string a rope between two houses, count it as a roof as long as they're within a certain horizontal distance of it, so they can follow the rope on occasions when the religion says they have to stay inside, and they think God enjoys them finding these loopholes?

Germany is like that, but with lawsuits. If anyone with money finds a technicality to sue you on, they will. So you have to be extremely liability averse if you want to be successful in business. Also, liability is almost always unlimited. You can be bankrupted by a single bad lawsuit.